For the most part, the things that make animals happy fall into the natural category. Opportunities for your pet to play and be physically active, and enjoy lots of social contact with the family and friendly members of his own kind are all vital to his mental and physical well-being. Grooming and/or being groomed, chewing and eating top quality food, drinking, sleeping and resting, being alert and mentally active are also essential parts of ‘being alive’ and fulfilling nature’s potential. He also needs a daily range of small problems to overcome, and the opportunity to encounter a steady stream of novel events and objects to stimulate his incredible senses, and encourage him to make natural canine or feline decisions and so learn how to enjoy the good and avoid the bad things that life throws at him.

Cats and dogs both evolved from predators and so they still also need to perform versions of the behaviours associated with detecting and catching prey that their ancestors relied on for survival. Herding, chasing, retrieving, digging etc are all-important to most dogs, depending on their type, of course. A pet collie can be loved to bits, but if he doesn’t get to run around to use up that energy and chase balls so that he exercises all that natural herding behaviour, it’s obvious that he will soon become frustrated and bored. Yet if you ask a Dachshund to chase around like that, he will soon become fed up, as he probably just wants to dig after some tasty treat that you have buried in the garden! Stalking, chasing and pouncing are crucial natural behaviours for a cat and he will happily chase toys that you dangle in front of him or drag along the ground.

Behaviourists at Coape (the Centre for Applied Pet Ethology) assess how content a cat or dog is likely to be based on how many of these natural behaviours that he can carry out on an average day. A spoiled or problem pet is often one who is well cared for physically, fed and loved, but is never challenged in the way that his species or breed was designed to be. Make life too easy and take away the opportunity to be natural and he could become lethargic, irritable, overweight and depressed, But do your best to fulfil all of his natural needs and you will have the best pet of all…one that is as naturally balanced as possible!